Game Boy Revived With 3D-Printed "Game Girl"

AdaFruit is celebrating the 25th anniversary of Nintendo's Game Boy by releasing instructions for a do-it-yourself modernized version.

There's really no understating just how important the GameBoy was to gaming as we know it. For Nintendo, it was the device that essentially cemented it as the (still reigning) king of the handheld market. For games in general, it proved that a portable experience could be something just as meaty and substantial as the sort of thing you'd normally expect from a console.

All of that said, the original Game Boy is turning 25 this year. It's an anniversary that's understandably led some to wax nostalgic for the days of brick-sized portables and visuals made up entirely of the color green. Some of these same fans are, in turn, celebrating the legendary portableby crafting their own, modernized take on it.

Created by AdaFruit, the "Game Girl" combines a Raspberry Pi Linux computer and a broken down SNES controller inside a custom 3D-printed chassis to create a retro-styled ROM player that looks the part of the original Game Boy while also outstripping it in terms of capability. Gamers interested in building their own Game Girl can find instructions as well as 3D printing schematics at AdaFruit.

Now granted, the Game Girl definitely lacks some of the charms of Nintendo's original. There's no cartridges, the screen is multi-colored and we're pretty sure it doesn't have what it takes to survive an explosion. That being the case, it's still a nifty little project and would be far from the worst way we could think of to celebrate the quarter century anniversary of one of the most popular and influential gaming devices of all time.